10 SEO MISTAKES TO AVOID NOW

SEO mistakes to avoid:

Why do we make SEO mistakes?

Why do we need to discuss SEO mistakes?

Let’s be honest. If we have a website, we would like to see a growth in visitors. There is no better feeling than to see a growth in visits and to see your website move up the ranks in Search Engines. We also know that climbing the search engine ladders equates to better visibility and more visitors. The more visitors, the better the chance to convert them into leads and ultimately clients.

We know the saying that ‘the best place to hide a body is on page 2 of Google’. It is for this reason that we will all do our best to have our websites display on the first page of search engines. In this article we will look at common mistakes that we make from time to time. This will not be a white hat versus black hat SEO article but a simple look at things that we can rectify immediately without to much of an effort.

Keywords: High Competition Keywords:

Do not use High Competition Keywords in Search Engine Optimisation

The use of keywords do not need much of an introduction. We all use them. What we however need to consider is which keywords we are using. In order to compete with other companies in a specific market you will have to compete for the same audience, not so? When we write a blog article or create other content for our websites we tend to focus on specific keywords. When others do the same we are in effect contributing to the creation of high competition keywords.

In a high competition keyword arena, it is sadly only the well-established companies and well-known brands that will perform well. Let’s use a quick example. If I want to write an article about a photography project (Photography Tips), and I use these high competition keywords, I will probably find that my article will not appear at the top, but those of the well established websites such as www.exposureguide.com, and my favourite, www.digital-photography-school.com using the very same keywords, will be topping the search engine list.

With this in mind it may be better to consider and target lower performing keywords due to the much lesser competition to rank for these keywords. The benefit of the use of lower performing keywords lies in using descriptive phrases rather than singular words. To use the above example again it may prove better to focus on a descriptive phrase such as “Tips to get the camera exposure right on a rainy day”.

Website not responsive or mobile friendly:

Websites that are not Mobile-friendly or not responsive is bad for SEO

Although this should never be the case, there are still websites out there that is not responsive or mobile friendly. This means that there are websites that are not optimized for mobile use which is one of the worst SEO mistakes that can be made. It is a well known fact that Google regards mobile friendly websites as an essential part in giving a website better rankings. Google’s algorithms actually penalise websites that are not designed for mobile. To meet Google’s standards for mobile usability one of the following approaches may be required.

Responsive design

Adaptive Design

Separate mobile site

For the purpose of this article we will not look into the differences between these mobile configurations. It is however important that we know that we cannot expect SEO success if our websites are not accessible on mobile devices.

Better and shorter content:

Shorter and Better Content beats long content

Most of us have heard the expression ”Content is King”. Although Bill Gates already coined the phrase in 1996, it is still applicable today. The way in which we approach and use content has however changed with time. Today we live in period where information contained in content needs to be absorbed quickly. For this reason, shorter, yet better content is preferred and actually outweighs more content.

Research that has been done, has proven that website content that provides substantial value attracts more visits than those on the opposite side of the scale. It may sometimes be difficult to give visitors quality content whilst limiting the content to a specific number of words. Research by has shown that content such as an article that ranks #1 on search engines contains an average of 2000 words. This is insightful, but we believe that this may change with the huge emphasis on mobile websites. Mobile websites will due its very nature require shorter content. It will certainly pay to consider means of creating better and shorter content for your website’s visitors.

Backlinks that lacks quality content:

Backlinks must link to quality content

Backlinks also hardly need any introduction. When other websites have links to your website they are backlinks. This can be extremely important for SEO and has been so for many years. Whereas search engines previously considered backlinks as is and marked it as an important part of your website’s ranking they are now checking the quality of these mentioned backlinks.

Although this article is not about black and white hat SEO tactics, we know that many companies bought large numbers of backlinks for SEO purposes. Search Engines will now punish a website if a backlink is not linking to quality content. In effect this encourages us to create quality content which deserves backlinks. Only backlinks to quality content will assist.

We have learned to always remember that search engines will lose its credibility if they present their clients with bad content.

Media not optimized for web display:

Media must be optimised for web display and good SEO results

Much has been written on optimising images for website display. Yet there are still many websites that contain images that are not properly optimized.

When we refer to image optimisation we refer to a number of factors that need to be considered when optimising images for web display. The most important factor is the size of the image and the way in which you make it visible to search engines. For this discussion we will concentrate on making it visible to search engines.

Normally a search engine will know that there are images on your website. This is the case because of the manner in which images are placed on websites. Images are placed on websites by means of HTML (markup language) elements such as <img> which contains further instructions such as the location of the image. When a search engine sees the <img> element it knows that there will be an image. It will however not know what the image is about unless we tell it. It is extremely important to tell a search engine what an image is about in order for it to be regarded as relevant and important. As an example, If we place an infographic on a webpage or in an article it is a very good way to illustrate something. The search engine will however be in the dark if it doesn’t know what it is.

For this reason it is important to make sure that we do the following:

Select a proper name for the file. 000646.jpg will mean nothing to Google. A title such as “woman_in_black_dress.jpg” will tell Google what the image is about.

Use the “alt text” functionality in HTML. This is even more useful to search engines than the image title as you can include the keyword(s) or phrase in the “alt text”.

Consider using captions in addition to the above, as research has shown on several occasions that captions under images are read on average 300% more than the body copy itself.

Slow website loading time:

Slow websites costs us dearly in SEO

There may be several factors that can slow down a website and I should probably write an article on this separately. In the context of this article it is however important to point out the main factors causing a slow website such as:

Large images

Sloppy code

Slow hosting server

Server location

Lots of traffic

Code density

Too many file requests

Outdated CMS

Unnecessary redirects

We will not discuss these causes in this article. It may however be a good idea to visit GTmetrix or Google’s PageSpeed Tools where you can enter your website and get a detailed report on your website speed and which factors, if any, may cause your website to slow down.

Keyword Stuffing:

Do not stuff you content with keywords.

When we first start to understand the value of keywords in a website’s url, its image names, “alt text” and page content, we may be tempted to use keywords a lot. This has been a practice for many website owners or web designers and developers.

Luckily search engines started to punish this behavior. We say luckily because it is a real pain to read an article that makes extensive use of specific keywords or phrases.

Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for

Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example: We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

Failure to audit your website:

Audit your website regularly to keep it optimised

Just as with any other important aspect of a business, a website needs to be audited often. SEO can be equated to a CV that needs to be polished every now and then to show your best side.

Auditing your website will go a long way in assisting you to identify problem areas on your website such as many of the above-mentioned mistakes. Regular audits will allow you to correct SEO mistakes or other shortcomings on your website which in turn will boost its SEO performance.

Article spinning:

Do not use article spinning tactics

Article spinning is basically the process of re-writing an article to create new “original” copies in an attempt to avoid duplicate content issues that can result in a penalty from search engines. Article spinning is usually found where a company makes use of article marketing to market their website.

Search engines have definitely aligned their algorithms to curtail and punish this practice. Yet there are still many people that employs this tactic. Article spinning has become one of the SEO mistakes to avoid in 2018!

Not updating your website regularly:

Keep your website and its content updated with fresh and relevant content

Under updating we are not only referring to keeping your website’s software or code updated and aligned with latest web standards. We are also looking at updating your websites content regularly. This may mean replacing outdated content with new and fresh content. It also includes adding quality and relevant new content to your website as often as possible.

Whilst it may not be possible for all companies, specifically our small to medium sized companies, to publish new content on a daily basis, it has been proven that publishing new content 2 to 3 times a week is beneficial to a website from a SEO perspective. Search engines use software which is referred to as bots, spiders or crawlers to “crawl” the web regularly to keep a proper index of every website. If search engines notice regular new content on a website, it will visit that website more often than other websites that do not get updated regularly. This in turn will lead to higher rankings, provided it is quality content.

In conclusion:

From the above we see that there are a number of SEO mistakes or problems to avoid. These mistakes should not be seen in isolation but as cogs in a machine that work together to make a website work for us. Many of these mistakes flow into one another and fixing one may often lead you to dealing with and rectifying another shortcoming.

It is best practice to have a proper SEO Plan which contains a specific goal and a proper strategy to achieve the set goal This will not only help you to avoid costly SEO mistakes but will also help your business to become more visible. In these two articles here and here we have given a broad overview of SEO and how to plan A SEO Strategy

Since we work with and create WordPress websites we make exclusive use of the YOAST SEO Plugin to assist us and our clients in complying with best SEO practices. Many other WordPress users trust All in One SEO Pack by Semper Plugins. We are not affiliated with any of these plugins.

Eitel is the owner and Lead Website Designer at WebScripto Pty Ltd. When not working on a website he loves to write blog articles covering various aspects of Website Design and Maintenance. Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments, questions or suggestions.

Website Maintenance

Website maintenance is important to any business, regardless of size. Your website is a worldwide window into your business and it can have a big impact on how the value of your product or service is perceived. All businesses need regular website maintenance to attract and retain customers, maintain search engine rankings and present new information, products and services to the public.

According to Cybervise, “If you are running an online store, website maintenance is equivalent to running a retail store. Product inventory, pricing, shipping all have to be maintained on a frequent basis. We recommend that online stores should perform maintenance at least on a weekly basis. Any delay in updates can instantly cost a business money, so plan for help before you find yourself in a crisis.”

Every website has to perform maintenance at some point or another. Whether it’s just to upgrade a portion of the site or because of some problem with the site, it’s an inevitable fact of website ownership.

According to B2C, there are five critical reasons why you should sign up for regular website maintenance with a web design agency.

“Keep Your Website Secure - A Forbes report from two years ago stated that every day 30,000 websites are hacked. This can easily be avoided by having a company handle your website maintenance — or by doing your updates in-house.

Improve User Experience - If your website isn’t user-friendly, why have a website at all? Updates to the software powering your website not only deals with security fixes but also add more useful features + make your website run smoother

Grow Your Website Traffic - If you launch your new website and never update it, why would an existing client/prospect come back to view it? Updating your website on a regular basis gives users a reason to come back!

Save Money - You may not have considered it, but paying an affordable monthly rate for website maintenance can save you a lot of money in the long run. What if your website is hacked, or if something else goes wrong and your website goes offline? This not only makes you and your company look bad but it could also be costly to fix. It’s a much better approach to be proactive in doing all of your normal website maintenance / updates.”

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. SEO is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Properly applied, search engine optimization allows your site to not only be seen by the search engines but, when a search term (either keywords or phrases) is entered, offers the ability to rank very high in the search engine results pages.

According to an article published in The Entrepreneur, SEO is one of the most powerful online marketing mediums there is, and it's critical to the success of your online business. The bottom line is, SEO done right can enable you to be found and ranked well in the sea of billions of existing web pages, and your visitors and your bank account will both love you for it.

It is not going to stop working any time soon – Based on the way search engines appear to be developing, it is not likely that SEO will cease to be effective any time in the foreseeable future.

It is cost-effective – Compared to the costs associated with other forms of online marketing such as PPC advertising, social media marketing, or purchasing leads for an email marketing program, SEO provides fairly good ROI.

Search engines grabbing more market share – Somewhere between 80-90% of customers now check online reviews prior to making a purchase, and this number is only expected to increase. It won’t be long before virtually everyone is searching for products and services online. Do you want them to be able to locate your business, or not? Without organic SEO in place, people will have a very hard time finding you and will instead find your competitors.

Rise of mobile bandwidth and local search optimization – Later this year, the amount of traffic delivered to mobile devices is expected to exceed that delivered to traditional desktop devices. With this dramatic explosion in mobile usage, a whole new world of effective SEO techniques have opened up for companies, such as local search optimization.

Not having a healthy content profile is damaging – With each and every update to its search algorithm, Google and other engines change the way they look at websites.

Your competitors are doing it – “If you’re not moving forward and improving your position, you’re losing ground to a competitor who is. That’s a simple fact of how the process works.” Don’t let your competitors out manoeuvre you by ignoring this valuable tool for your business.”

E-Commerce Website

e-Commerce, also known as e-Business, or electronic business, is simply the sale and purchase of services and goods over and electronic medium, like the Internet. It also involves electronically transferring data and funds between two or more parties. Simply put, it is online shopping as we commonly know it.

According to an article published by Huffington Post, when it comes to successfully running your online business the ecommerce software that your website is built on can either be a supportive ally or a tormenting obstacle. If you make the wrong choice it can make the whole experience incredibly frustrating.

WooCommerce for example, is an excellent choice for Wordpress Users. According to IThemes, “From ease of use to SEO, control over inventory to mobile readiness, WooCommerce is the clear choice for your WordPress e-commerce site “

There are different types of e-Commerce websites. The most common type is retail selling, but there are many others too, like auction websites, business-to-business services, music portals, consultancy websites, finance management websites, and the like. WebScripto can help you create the perfect e-commerce website on any of these subjects.

Content Writing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Forbes succinctly put it: “Content marketing taps into the first two stages of the buying process by raising awareness of solutions and educating consumers about a product they may have never considered before.”

According to the Content Marketing Institute, regardless of what type of marketing tactics you use, content marketing should be part of your process, not something separate. Quality content is part of all forms of marketing:

Content strategy: Content strategy is part of most content marketing strategies.

There are a number of different types of Content Marketing, but what WebScripto wants to stress is the importance of Content Writing. Who wants to read a piece of content riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes, or where the point of the story is not clearly illustrated? Nobody. You will lose your customer within seconds after s/he has started to read about your product or advice.

According to an article published by the Huffington Post, “by creating a good content strategy, you will have the unique opportunity to offer meaning to your content and make it fulfil your business goal. The content will be branded, and it will be offering you a better exposure in the online world.”

Content that is well-researched and well-written by an experienced and skilled Content Writer is therefore crucial, not only to the products or services you are attempting to sell, but to your brand as a whole.

Content writers are professional writers who produce engaging content for use online. They're Internet-savvy individuals who create articles, blog posts, and other forms of written Web material.

Another important factor is to keep up a Blog that keeps your customer focused on your website and products. Google also attaches importance to the relevance of your content and whether or not you are consistently updating your website to keep it relevant and informative.

Graphic Design

There are no shortcuts for professional graphic design. Whether it's a logo, business card, or website, bad design drives away business. Design that’s to be experienced in an instant is the easiest to recognize. Designers arrange type, form, and image on posters, advertisements, packages, and other printed matter, as well as information visualizations and graphics for newspapers and magazines.

According to The Balance, graphic design can serve many functions, and to that end, it wears many hats. Just a few of the uses of graphic design include:

Logo Design

Signage

Corporate identity/ Branding

Printed materials (books, flyers, magazines, newspapers)

Online (banners, blogs, websites, etc)

Album covers

Greeting cards

Howdesign has identified 6 reasons why professional design is necessary:

First impressions matter.

Design can tell a story.

Branding makes a company memorable.

Creativity can be a differentiator.

Good design converts.

Spending more up-front saves time and money in the long run.

WebScripto can help your business with the memorable designs you need to make your brand stand out from your competitors. Contact us now for a free no-obligation quote.

Product Photography

Product photography is a branch of commercial photography which is about accurately but attractively representing a product. The principal application of product photography is in product catalogues and brochures, with a proportion of product images also being used in advertising. Commercial photography is photography which is shot for a commercial purpose, typically for use in commercial offset litho printing or in advertising. Commercial photography generally has the end purpose of selling a product or service.

We all know that human beings are visual by nature. A single snapshot of a product can provide more relevant information about the product’s quality than paragraphs of text.

Good quality product images are key to selling your products online, often we forget that the customer has not seen the products we are selling. Product images are a representation of the physical product that the customer will receive.

Let’s put some statistics behind our contention. The Industrial Marketer made a very good summation in this regard:

Articles with relevant images average 94% more total views than articles without images.

A press release with photos gets nearly 15% more online views than a text-only press release.

60% of consumers who use online search say they prefer to contact a business whose listing includes an image.

Nearly 70% of e-commerce website shoppers say the product image is very important when making their purchase decision.

Digital Marketing:

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts. Businesses leverage digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers. WebScripto is firmly of the view that no matter what kind of business you have, digital marketing methods and techniques can help you reach and expand your customer base.

According to Wikipedia, “in an ever more complex retail environment, customer engagement is essential but challenging. Retailers must shift from a linear marketing approach of one-way communication to a value exchange model of mutual dialogue and benefit-sharing between provider and consumer. The spread of information and awareness can occur across numerous channels, such as the blogosphere, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and a variety of other platforms. Online communities and social networks allow individuals to easily create content and publicly publish their opinions, experiences, and thoughts and feelings about many topics and products.”

Let us put some statistics behind the growing Digital Stratosphere and the importance of Digital Marketing in this environment. The Nielsen Company investigated and found the following: “The online retail ecosystem is fast evolving, and increasingly, shoppers no longer simply go to the nearest store. Rather, they grab the nearest digital device. And with the world at our fingertips, why only shop domestically? In fact, digital analytics firm e-Marketer projects that online retail sales will more than double between 2015 and 2019 and account for more than 12% of global sales by 2019. Retail therapy is giving way to e-tail therapy.”

WebScripto agrees with Forbes that, “the key to keeping up with the technological revolution is to fully embrace it, understand its potential and figure out how to properly integrate it into your larger strategy”.